


The Errand

by jp2187



Series: Anakin Happy Ending AU [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, And a happy ending, Anisoka, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Mandalorian/Cara slow burn UST, Past Anidala, The entire Clone Wars gang needs a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24066079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jp2187/pseuds/jp2187
Summary: Life had been good to the Skywalker clan in the five years since the defeat of Palpatine and the fall of the Empire.  Leia was now a Senator in the New Republic, and Luke was doing well with the fledgling New Jedi.  As a happily remarried widower, Anakin was content to live a simple life on Tatooine with Ahsoka, Captain Rex, and the rest of his children.As the family prepared for a visit from their off world loved one, Anakin insisted that his errand into town would be quick—unaware that his afternoon was about to get hijacked by a little girl with three buns, and a bounty hunter in pursuit of a Baby Yoda who keeps getting kidnapped.Sequel to “The Last Argument,” “Return of a Different Jedi,” and “Grandson of Skywalker.”  Can be read as a stand alone, but will make a bit more sense after reading the others first (especially “Return of a Different Jedi”).Written because Anakin needs to team up with the Mandalorian, Baby Yoda needs to meet actual Yoda, and I miss Mara Jade.And because I was heartbroken after watching the Clone Wars finale.**Spoilers for Clone Wars Season 7**
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Ahsoka Tano, Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Din Djarin/Cara Dune, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Mara Jade & Anakin Skywalker, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Rey & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Anakin Happy Ending AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1462576
Comments: 100
Kudos: 175





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alpha_Texan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alpha_Texan/gifts), [Trish_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trish_writes/gifts), [SoulUntraveled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulUntraveled/gifts).



> Thank you again to all my awesome readers! Thank you for all your support for this series.
> 
> Also, if anyone missed it but is interested, I posted Part 3 which is a one shot "Grandson of Skywalker" about Anakin being present for Ben's birth.

“You asked me to remind you before everyone gets here to grab the parts you wanted from town to fixed the dead vaporator,” Ahsoka said with a note of reservation in her voice.

“Oh thanks. I forgot about that,” Anakin replied.

“Anakin, our entire family, Obi-Wan, and _Master Yoda_ will be here in a matter of hours. We have a million things to do before they get here—please don’t take too long,” Ahsoka implored.

“Of course. I’m just going to quickly run into town and I’ll be right back,” he assured her.

“I mean it Anakin! Don’t get side-tracked!” Ahsoka repeated more forcefully than Anakin deemed necessary.

“I’m leaving now and will be back with plenty of time to spare!” he replied a bit defensively.

After giving his wife a peck on the lips, he began making his way out of the homestead. He only made it a few paces, however, before he turned back.

“And don’t lift anything heavy—even with the Force,” he told her.

“Anakin, the more pregnant I am the more irrational your overprotectiveness gets,” Ahsoka complained, and resting a hand on her full-term belly added, “Which right now is saying something.”

“Just get the Rexes to help you until I get back!” Anakin replied.

“Which better be soon, Anakin . . .” she responded with a glare that could freeze the Tatooine desert.

Feeling more than a little exasperated, Anakin made his way towards the parked landspeeder. As he walked past Padmé’s grave, however, he got the distinct impression of a raised eyebrow.

“Oh now don’t you start too,” Anakin tossed her way, bristling in annoyance.

The eyebrow did not lower.

“I’m not going to get distracted. And I’m going to be right back . . . You’re both acting like I’m Threepio!” Anakin added petulantly.

“Says the man who _built_ Threepio,” Padmé countered.

The former Jedi did not dignify her insightfulness with an answer.

Anakin hated feeling like his wives were ganging up on him, and was determined to show them both.

\-------------------

In blackness of space just beyond Tatooine’s atmosphere, a pre-Empire gunship dropped out of hyperspace.

“I certainly didn’t think I’d be back here this soon,” Din Djarin commented from behind his helmet.

“Well, hopefully our stay won’t be too long,” Cara Dune replied from the passenger seat.

The seat _he_ usually occupied.

A wave of frustration and anger suddenly washed over the Mandalorian, and he slammed his palm onto the Razor Crest’s dash.

“Keffing Tatooine is just like the fifth rate planet I found him on the first time, Cara! Inside a bunker, locked in a blaster proof bassinet!” he yelled.

“We’ll find him,” she soothed.

“This time. But what about the next time? And the time after that?” Din shot back, “You and I will be long dead and gone before he’s even remotely old enough to fend for himself!”

“Have you considered that maybe we should take him to the Jedi?” Cara asked tentatively.

“Absolutely not. You heard the Armorer—they’re enemies! And therefore just as bad and anyone else whose after him!” he forcefully replied.

“At least they wouldn’t be trying to kill him or hand him over to the Imps,” she shot back.

“No,” Din emphatically ended their discussion.

From the tone of his voice Cara could tell that under all his Mandalorian armor he was still very upset. She laid a calming hand on his forearm.

Given that she was wearing thick gloves and his forearm was covered by the casing that housed his whipcord and flamethrowers, the gesture still felt surprisingly intimate.

“We’ll find him . . . and take it one step at a time,” Cara assured him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos much appreciated!
> 
> Also thank you so much for all the support for this series. It means a lot!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin reflects on his family while driving into town.
> 
> (And I process my feelings after watching the Clone Wars series finale T_T)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, I need to rewatch the Mandalorian for this fic, so it might be a minute before I update.
> 
> But I wanted to get what I had posted in case anyone is like me and needs something to take the edge off after TCW's finale.

It was hard to believe nearly five years had passed since the end of the Galactic Civil War. As the landspeeder sped across the sand towards Mos Eisley, Anakin had time to reflect that those years had been eventful but overall good for the Skywalker clan.

When the New Republic Capital relocated from Chandrila to Hosnian Prime last year Leia, Han, and Ben had moved with it.

Mon Mothma and Bail Organa were taking turns at the helm of the new government, and Leia was now a junior senator representing Alderaan. As Anakin knew she would, Leia excelled and thrived in her new position—although it did keep her and Winter quite busy.

In his work with the Shipping and Commerce Commission, Han had put his scoundrel smuggling ties to good use. Thanks to his creativity and recruitment efforts, the New Republic soon found their shipping capacity greatly increased by an influx of experienced cargo pilots—happy to give up the glamor of smuggling in favor of secure maintenance facilities and not being shot at. Anakin had to admit he was impressed.

The pair’s skill at parenting, however, was a lot less outstanding. While both of them loved their son deeply, they approached raising him based what they themselves had needed a children. Leia especially had been quite vocal when her needs—along with her wants and whims—were not suitably being met.

Ben, however, was nothing like either of his parents. As a quiet sensitive kid he needed a lot more than either of them realized.

It was hard for Anakin to watch his daughter make mistakes. There would come a day, he knew, when Leia would greatly lament not spending more time with her son. Unfortunately she never learned anything other than the hard way and that day was still far off.

The least Anakin could do was try to protect his grandson as much as possible from the consequences. He had started pressing Leia to let Ben spend more time on Tatooine, which seemed to be helping somewhat.

Elsewhere in the galaxy on Yavin IV, the New Jedi Order had successfully gotten off the ground and was now a thriving community.

In addition to training the next generation of Jedi in the ways of the Force—which he could do in his sleep—Master Yoda was now really into learning about families. It appeared to give him renewed purpose and energy as he pasted the nine hundred year mark of his lifespan.

Unfortunately, since he didn’t really know any other families, it resulted in him somewhat obsessively observing the Skywalker clan.

It was a situation Anakin was perpetually trying to wriggle out of, so far without success. Kanan Jarrus had been a padawan of the old Order, who had somehow survived the Purge and the Galactic Civil War to become an important member of the New Jedi. After he married his wartime sweetheart—a pretty green Twi'lek—Anakin had hoped they could start sharing some of the load. Kanan, however, had somehow managed to set healthy boundaries with Master Yoda, which was something Anakin seemed incapable of doing.

Anakin and Ahsoka, therefore, continued to be stuck with the full burden, and frequently had to remind each other that Master Yoda was kind of an extended member of their family whether they liked it or not. Under the current circumstances mostly ‘not.’

The former Jedi, furthermore, was not sure how accurate a grasp of normal family life Master Yoda was actually getting since somehow things had a way getting profoundly awkward whenever the little Jedi Grandmaster was visiting.

Anakin could not remember what in the galaxy they had been talking about the last time Master Yoda was on Tatooine that had led to the revelation that Ahsoka’s first kiss had not been with Anakin, but the ensuing exchange had been fairly memorable.

“ _Lux_ _Bonteri?!”_ Anakin exclaimed, “Are you freaking kidding me Ahsoka!”

“I was posing as his betrothed when we infiltrated Death Watch . . . and I liked him,” Ahsoka replied.

“And where exactly was _I_ while you were off consorting with Mandalorian terrorists and kissing Separatists boys?” Anakin retorted in the exact tone of voice he would have adopted to deal with his sixteen-year-old padawan’s walk on the wild side.

“Probably on Coruscant being _secretly married to Padmé_!” Ahsoka shot back, verbally shoving him off his high horse with a reminder of his extreme hypocrisy.

While Obi-Wan had assumed his favorite pose of long suffering, Master Yoda had added an extra layer of ridiculousness to the situation by watching with rapt attention as husband and wife squabble over something that had ceased to be remotely important sometime over the last twenty years.

Despite his newfound enthusiasm, Master Yoda was at the same time fairly clueless as to just how messy embracing the importance of ‘family bonds and attachments’ could actually get. Anakin knew full well that it was due to Obi-Wan’s efforts alone that the New Jedi Order did not descend into a free-for-all of teenage hormones, drama, and chaos.

It was not for nothing, however, that Obi-Wan was the only master in the history of the Jedi Order whose padawan had gotten married against the Code right under the Council’s nose and kept it a secret for three years. As a younger man Anakin had taken his master for quite a ride, and at present a much older and wiser Obi-Wan was nobody’s fool.

His efforts to ‘Anakin proof’ the new training temple were greatly enhanced, furthermore, by the poster boy for Jedi troublemaking being only a com away.

“Anakin, how would you have gotten around this?” Obi-Wan asked more times than his former padawan could count.

Learning from his mistakes with Anakin, moreover, the older Jedi became skilled at mediating interpersonal conflicts and helping his new charges navigate their emotions, pace any budding romances, and learn the importance of good boundaries as they formed attachments.

And Anakin was happy to help his friend—especially since he had a very personal reason for wanting the New Jedi Order to be much healthier than the one in which he was raised.

Having inherited the Skywalker strength in the Force, Luke quickly became a rising star among the Jedi. He was additionally doing very well beyond his growing prowess in the Force—much to his father’s relief.

Anakin had once commented to Padmé that he could not believe such a dispositionally innocent and unflinchingly optimistic kid had sprung forth from their loins. Padmé had replied that Luke reminded her a lot of Anakin as a boy on Tatooine before the Jedi, Palpatine—and quite frankly Padmé herself—had corrupted him.

Anakin had foreseen that, like him, the galaxy would disillusioningly chew Luke up and spit him out with a new cynicism. He was surprised but not displeased, however, that that did not appear to be his son’s destiny.

Even after growing into a young man and leaving home, Luke remained a straight-laced golden boy, who cheerfully followed all of Obi-Wan’s rules, was kind and generally well liked, and approached the galaxy with unfading optimism and a determination to believe the best in people.

No, upon reflection his father had to admit that there was only one source of drama in Luke’s life—which stemmed solely from his choice of female companion.

Many years ago, a lothcat had stowed away aboard a starship, emerged in Mos Eisley, and somehow made it all the way to the Lars moisture farm without being eaten by a wild something or other. Moved with pity at the sight of the bedraggled creature, a seven-year-old Luke had tried to rescue it—and been deeply scratched as a reward for his compassion.

The wound had been so deep that Anakin had had to put his son into a healing trance and use the Force to mend him. Before being rendered unconscious, however, Luke had made such a fuss that they needed to save the lothcat that, while Anakin was working on his son, Ahsoka had healed the wounded animal.

The wretched feline spent the next decade on the moisture farm slinking around and hissing at everyone but Luke—from whom it tolerated affection along with food—before it _finally_ died.

Anakin had no inkling at the time, but the incident was apparently a foreshadowing of his son’s love life.

With a pair of suspicious green eyes and a caustic personality, Mara Jade was kind of like a human lothcat—even more so than Anakin’s Togruta wife.

She had been among the Force sensitive children who were liberated from the Empire’s clutches after Palpatine’s death. Mara, however, had been significantly older than most of the others. She was more similar in age to Maul’s Inquisitors—whom preferred to fight to the death rather than surrender, and the New Republic and the New Jedi had to enlist Anakin and Ahsoka’s help to take them out.

That Mara was not on the dark side of the Force, however, was something upon which the adult Force users eventually agreed. She was, therefore, allowed to become part of the New Jedi Order and begin her training. Or, as Anakin was also quick to point out, continue her suspiciously advanced training in the ways of the Force.

It was also readily apparent that Mara—who seemed to simmer with anger just below the surface—was not especially enthusiastic about being at the Jedi training temple. She kept it together, however, and maintained enough of a polite façade to not get kicked out. But to Anakin she always seemed to be weighing her options, and be ready to bolt to try and make her way in the smuggling or underground world if it ever seemed like a preferable alternative.

The other adults eventually decided that she must have experienced a great trauma, likely in one of the common ways women—even Force users—were too frequently wounded, and let her be. Anakin, however, could not shake the belief that they were all missing something—something big.

He was, therefore, less than pleased when his son quickly attached himself to her.

That Luke had been instantly taken with the agile edgy redhead, with piercing green eyes and an electric Force signature Anakin completely understood.

What he did not understand was what the strikingly gorgeous, well traveled, likely higher ranking than she was letting on former Imperial was doing with his overly-optimistic, still fairly naïve son.

Anakin assumed Mara was with Luke because of his Force powers. Having experienced marriage both ways, Anakin agreed sharing a Force bond was important. But it definitely could not singlehandedly sustain anything long-term.

He would never ever tell his son, but as soon as Luke called to excitedly tell his father that he and Mara were officially together, Anakin had immediately had serious doubts about the longevity of their relationship.

That her nickname for Luke was ‘farm boy’ only strengthened Anakin’s opinion on the matter, and he expected on an almost daily basis to get a tearful call from a heartbroken Luke when Mara inevitably got bored and moved on.

Like the wretched lothcat, however, their relationship lived on and on.

Finally it was unavoidably time for Luke to bring Mara home for a visit. While Luke seemed to be oblivious to his father’s reservations, Mara was not. Upon the couple’s arrival on Tatooine she and Anakin glared at each other behind Luke’s back—and decided by unspoken agreement that they had both had enough.

As night descended on the moisture farm, the clash that had long been coming finally drew near.

“Are you coming to bed?” Ahsoka asked suspiciously, fully aware her husband was hiding something from her.

“In a bit,” he replied, having no intention of revealing his planned confrontation, and incurring her perfectly justified disapproval and wrath.

She gave him a glare for good measure before turning in, and Anakin stayed sitting in the courtyard long after everyone—almost everyone—had gone to sleep.

With lothcat grace, Mara silently reemerged to join him in the dead of night.

For a moment they simply resumed glowering at each other.

“Who . . . were you?” Anakin not for the first time asked her point blank.

Her glared hardened for several heartbeats, before she finally answered.

“I was the ‘Emperor’s Hand,’” Mara stated, a note of both pride and apprehension at his inevitable reaction coming into her voice.

A chill ran up Anakin’s spine.

After his own brief turn as a Sith Lord, however, Anakin knew better than most that with the Sith there were always—and only—two. And Maul not Mara had replaced him as Palpatine’s apprentice. Furthermore, the young Force user did not appear to be tainted by the dark side.

While ‘Emperor’s Hand’ was certainly a grandiose enough title befitting Palpatine’s service, Anakin was not actually sure what she meant by that.

“And what exactly did that entail?” he asked as evenly as possible.

“I exposed traitors for him . . . brought down his enemies . . . and helped him keep the kind of control over the mindless bureaucracies that he needed,” Mara declared, before moving on to elaborate.

In other words, Anakin realized with no small amount of surprise, her duties appeared to be fighting corruption and any other task that could remotely be considered a “noble service” among the Imperials. It was unclear what the Emperor’s ultimate plans were for the young Force user, but before his death Palpatine for some reason had not turned Mara to the dark side.

“Is this the part where you tell me to stay away from your son and your perfect family?” Mara hissed with barely contained rage.

Part of Anakin very much wanted to tell her to get as far away from Luke as possible and then stay there. It was not, however, a sentiment that originated from the Light side of the Force.

A memory also came to mind—himself yelling at Master Yoda for not being more compassionate.

With an acceptance that, while Luke was similar in temperament to who Anakin had been, Mara was a lot more akin to who he currently was—Anakin tamped down his instinctive anxiety and choose to help the wounded young woman.

“I don’t think you know this, but I was actually quite close to Palpatine for over a decade,” Anakin calmly told her.

From her abrupt shift in posture, Anakin could tell that neither his words nor his tone were what Mara was expecting.

“He was a mentor, a friend, and a father figure who looked out for me when I was far from home. And I believed to the core that he was a good man,” he continued.

Anakin could sense that Mara’s confusion was giving way as she began to see where he was going with this.

“And I staunchly defended him as a good man to everyone . . . right up until he manipulated me into falling to the dark side, razing the Jedi Temple, and playing a starring role in wiping out the whole Order . . .”

“No, that wasn’t you—that was Vader,” Mara reflexively corrected.

Anakin merely raised his eyebrows at her, and suddenly Mara’s eyes grew wide with understanding. He also sensed a huge crack open up in her usually impenetrable emotional armor at the shock of realizing that somehow she was dating _Darth Vader’s_ son.

“In hindsight, I think him deceiving me about who he really was—fanning the flame of my conviction that he was good and genuinely cared—is what’s caused the most lasting damage of everything he did to me. It left me broken, disillusioned, and confused. And to be honest I’m not sure I’ve ever really gotten over it.”

Mara said nothing, but Anakin could see tears coming into her eyes as his words struck a deep cord with her very personal pain—from a wound so incomprehensible to everyone that she thought she would be alone with it forever.

“And while the decision will ultimately be up to you and my son, I think you may find that our family is exactly where you belong,” Anakin finished.

For a moment Mara waivered . . . before her defenses completely dropped and she burst into tears.

Although Anakin was not above confronting Mara about her Imperial past behind Luke’s back at two o’clock in the morning, he was absolutely not comforting his son’s girlfriend in the middle of the night.

Reaching out through the Force, Anakin roughly roused Luke and summoned him to come outside immediately. Luke emerged a few seconds later dressed in his sleeping clothes and with his blond hair sticking out in all directions.

“Dad?” he asked as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes.

Before Anakin could reply, however, Luke caught sight of his sobbing girlfriend.

“Mara!” he cried, as he rushed over to her, “What’s wrong?!”

Although flinging herself into his chest and weeping all the more, she shook her head in indication that nothing was.

In typical fashion, Luke took the sketchy scene he walked into in stride.

If Leia had come upon her significant other in tears standing next to her father she would have instantly assumed Anakin had caused some bodily injury—and in the case of Han she would have been right.

Luke, however, as usual gave Anakin the benefit of the doubt. Accepting that for whatever reason she would explain later that Mara just needed to cry, he supportively stroked her hair as he silently held her.

And since unlike his sister—or his father—Luke would never _dream_ of doing anything other than comfort his distraught girlfriend and escort her back to the guest quarters before returning to his own room, Anakin went to bed.

In the months since then Mara had changed a lot. And Anakin had to admit that Luke had been right all along—she really was a wonderful person.

Anakin also came to realize that he had totally misunderstood and underestimated the young Force user. Tired of her jaded outlook from being surrounded by disingenuous and disreputable Imperials, Luke’s hopeful worldview and honesty were a breath of fresh air for Mara. She liked Luke precisely because he was an overly-optimistic, straightforward, farm boy.

Mara, furthermore, sensed that what would be most healing after Palpatine’s lies and deception was to be loved by Luke Skywalker—who was always and only exactly who he appeared to be—even on the days when she, herself, became exasperated with his tendency to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

Anakin stopped expecting a post break up call from Luke, and instead ended up getting a different one announcing Luke and Mara’s engagement.

Although little changed in the day-to-day routine on the Tatooine moisture farm, life had also improved in small and not so small ways for the rest of the Skywalkers.

As they blew past their fifteenth wedding anniversary, Anakin had thought he had his relationship with Ahsoka pretty well figured out. He had been surprised over the last few years, however, to learn just how mistaken he had been.

From the beginning, Anakin and Ahsoka had shared a special Force bond that existed to some degree between all masters and their padawans. As two unusually strong Force users, moreover, their bond in the Force had always been exceptionally robust.

According to the Code, however, there were supposed to be ‘boundaries and limits’ in the master apprentice relationship. Anakin was pretty blasé about ‘boundaries and limits’ as was evident on many occasions—including when he brazenly ignored every security protocol in the book and gave Ahsoka his computer passcode which he then didn’t bother changing even after she left the Order. Their Force connection was further strengthened beyond the norm by the fact that Anakin had not bothered to cultivate the degree of detachment from his padawan befitting a master preparing to one day let his student go.

Although suffering a severe blow, therefore, their bond was strong enough to later survive her leaving the Jedi, and Anakin and Ahsoka could still feel each other’s presence through the Force when they were nearby.

“By the way, what were you doing on that ship that flew into military air space that one time? And why was some rookie flying instead of you?” Anakin once asked her.

He was not sure what suddenly brought that memory to mind, especially since he was in middle of peppering her neck and jawline with kisses.

“Unbeknownst to me—making a spice run from Kessel to Oba Diah,” she casually replied.

“Wait— _what_?!” Anakin exclaimed as he abruptly stopped kissing her, and rose up on his forearms to look her in the eye.

“Oh, and since the ‘rookie pilot’ panicked and dumped the spice into hyperspace, we showed up to the Pyke’s empty handed. Things got . . . interesting,” she continued with mirth in her eyes.

“I seriously should have just let Yularen arrest you,” Anakin lamented.

“Probably would have simplified the situation considerably,” Ahsoka agreed with a smirk.

“I don’t even want to know how much trouble you really got into as a teenager, Snips,” Anakin bemoaned.

“Likely still less than you,” she shot back before laughingly pulling him back down so his lips could again meet hers.

Their special connection had not, however, survived Anakin falling to the dark side—leading both of them to believe that the other was dead. When Ahsoka had turned up on Tatooine and they were reunited, however, it had thankfully been easy to reforge.

Falling in love and getting married had unsurprisingly kicked up their Force bond to a whole new level. Without either of them consciously thinking about it, their Force senses now washed over each other in a free flowing mutual exchange that was limited only by their personal barriers.

After the circumstances of Ben’s birth, however, Anakin came to a new realization that there was a lot more behind his carefully constructed blockades than he had previously considered. In reality, he had taken everything from the worst three years of his life and stuck it into a mental box, which he summarily shoved aside and avoided contemplating at all cost.

In his desire to move on—and his longstanding inclination to shield his adolescent padawan from his problems—he had certainly never shared most of it with Ahsoka. Although she had started off as his young apprentice, however, Anakin had raised her to be strong and confident. She had grown into a woman who had long been his equal—and his wife.

In the wake of his emotional meltdown during Ben’s birth, Anakin came to accept that he needed to stop holding Ahsoka at arms length about the events of those terrible years—especially after acknowledging just how much they were still affecting him.

“I need to tell you more about the stuff that came up when Ben was born,” he eventually told her.

She had readily assented, and they had come out to the dunes that night. As Ahsoka held his intact left hand in both of hers and soothingly ran her thumbs across his skin, Anakin told her everything.

He told her all the gory details of what happened after they had parted ways for the last time during the Clone Wars. He told her about killing Dooku, his dream about Padmé, being fought over by Palpatine and the Jedi Council, and the horror of Order 66. He told her about the atrocities he committed in the Temple and on Mustafar, and how Padmé and Obi-Wan had rescued him. He told her about the twin’s birth, Padmé’s death, and just how suicidal he had been until she showed up on Tatooine.

Ahsoka listened without interrupting. As he finished talking and wiped a few tears that had formed in his eyes, Anakin could not believe how much better he felt.

He then turned to his wife, awaiting her reaction to everything he had just told her. She did not initially have much to say—but what she did caught Anakin completely off-guard.

“I have something I need to tell you too,” Ahsoka said in a small voice.

Anakin realized that in his typical self-centeredness it had not occurred to him that she also might have something she needed to get off her chest.

“I’ve never told you what really happened during the Siege of Mandalore,” Ahsoka began.

Anakin turned his head and looked at her with new intensity—sensing what she was about to share was no trivial detail.

“As I’m sure you remember, Bo-Katan’s plan was to move in quickly and capture Maul unaware while he was still on Mandalore—but the whole thing was really a trap. Maul wanted her to bring the Jedi. But more specifically he wanted Obi-Wan to come—and bring you.”

Something indefinable clenched Anakin’s chest in anticipation of Ahsoka’s next words.

“When I found him the first time, he started going on about ‘the moment being upon us’ and that ‘the Jedi and the Republic would soon no longer be the controlling interest in the galaxy’ but ‘Darth Sidious.’”

“When Obi-Wan checked in with Bo-Katan, Rex, and me enroute to Utapau, I told him what Maul had said. He shared with us that all the Council knew was that Darth Sidious was the Sith Lord the Jedi had long been looking for. And although he first heard the name from Dooku they couldn’t learn more from the Count because you had killed him while rescuing the Chancellor. But Obi-Wan hoped Maul could provide more details if we could catch him.”

“He then pulled me aside and privately told me what the Council had done—that they’d assigned you to spy on the Chancellor,” she said, and even all theses years later Ahsoka’s voice hardened in anger with the memory.

“I was outraged they would do that to you, and Obi-Wan seemed pretty upset as well. Before signing off he asked me to com you . . . but I never got the chance,” Ahsoka said with great sorrow, and a tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek.

Anakin gave her hand a squeeze, and after taking a deep breath she kept going.

“About the same time, Maul abducted Jesse and pulled information about me out of his mind. And when I finally caught up with him again he was very interested in talking to me—alone.”

“I told him I was bringing him to the Council for justice, but all he did was let out a hollow laugh and tell me that ‘Justice is merely the construct of the current powerbase—a base, which according to my calculations, is about to change.’”

“I asked him if Sidious was behind it, and he said that Sidious was ‘behind everything, in the shadows always—but soon he would reveal himself.’ I told Maul that with his help the Jedi could stop Sidious, but he refused on the grounds it was pointless—because ‘the Republic had already fallen and we just couldn’t see it’ and ‘the time of the Jedi had passed.’”

“He said the Jedi could not defeat Sidious . . . but that together he and I could.”

Upon hearing of Maul’s offer, Anakin’s eyebrows rocketed up his forehead. In his mind’s eye he could see the Dathomirian holding a black-gloved hand out to Ahsoka in invitation—not unlike the one Anakin himself had held out to her in his attempt to persuade her to return to the Order.

“I told him that before I gave him an answer, I needed him tell me what he wanted with you. The puppet Mandalorian prime minister told me that the name ‘Skywalker’ had come to Maul in a vision—and I had to know why Maul thought all this had anything to do with you.”

“Maul said you were ‘the key to everything,’ ‘to destroy,’ and that you had ‘long been groomed’ for your role as ‘his master’s new apprentice.’ He told me he had orchestrated the war on Mandalore to lure you there so he could kill you—to ‘deprive Sidious of his prized pupil,’” Ahsoka said with an audible strain in her voice.

“I told him he was wrong and we fought,” she said flatly.

Although seriously doubting that Maul would in fact have been able to kill him, Anakin was genuinely shocked by Ahsoka’s words. The tragic irony that Maul had somehow been given a glimpse of the catastrophic events that had been about to unfold in short order—but that no one was going to listen to his warning because he was Maul—was not lost on the former Jedi.

“Maul again demanded that I join him, but I refused,” Ahsoka continued.

“He disarmed me, but I managed to outmaneuver and capture him with Rex’s help. But before Rex stunned him he started screaming that we were all going to die. I’d never heard anyone sound so desperate . . . it was really unsettling.”

For perhaps the first time, Anakin wondered what exactly the circumstances were of Maul’s reunion with Palpatine—and just how voluntarily Maul had resumed his place as the Sith Lord’s apprentice.

“Well Snips, you were always better than me at saying ‘no,’” Anakin commented a bit dryly in a failed attempt to lighten the mood.

“Only because _you_ protected me!” Ahsoka countered.

She turned until her whole body was facing him, as more tears slipped out of her eyes. “You protected me. But no one was protecting you! And I-I could have changed things!”

Anakin wanted to argue with her—to blindly assure her that there was nothing she could have done. But only a few minutes ago Ahsoka had sat silently and supportively listened to what he had to say, and Anakin managed to reciprocate and hold his tongue.

“I asked Rex to try and reach you while I was talking with Bo-Katan about how to get Maul back to Coruscant. He said the Council wanted to talk to me and that you were at the meeting. But when I got there, they had already sent you off to inform the Chancellor that Obi-Wan had found Grievous,” she said, her grip on his hand intensifying now that she knew what had happened to him there.

“Master Yoda started angling for me to come back to the Order, and after I refused Master Windu stonewalled me when I asked what was happening with the Chancellor.”

_Because of course they did._

“The other Masters left, but Master Yoda stayed on. He asked me if I had anything else to say or had a message for you. But I still didn’t trust the Council and I wanted to tell you myself when I got back to Coruscant,” she said, as tears started to flow in an unbroken stream down her face, “I could have told him what Maul said—I should have—but I didn’t! . . . And part of me’s felt so guilty for so long!”

In the face of her distress, Anakin was able to stay silent no longer. Turning to his own body to more fully face hers, he launched into an impassioned reply.

“It’s not your fault, Ahsoka,” Anakin forcefully asserted, “I went downhill pretty fast when I started having dreams about Padmé dying. And there were so many other people—starting with me—who could have done something differently that _might_ have changed what happened. For all we know things could have ended up even worse!”

Cupping her face with one hand, Anakin drew Ahsoka’s gaze upward until her eyes fully met his.

“The bottom line, Snips—it’s not your fault,” Anakin insisted.

Ahsoka began to cry harder, and Anakin sensed she was having a hard time accepting his words. He put a comforting arm around her shoulders, and through her tears Ahsoka somehow managed to get out the rest of what happened.

The Republic cruiser was in hyperspace when Order 66 came over the com. Ahsoka’s only warning of the coming disaster was a sudden unsettling vision of Palpatine and Master Windu forcing Anakin to choose between them. Rex had fought the insidious program overriding his free will long enough to give her a clue—that what happening had something to Fives—before he and the rest of her long trusted men tried to kill her.

Ahsoka had managed to survive by deflecting the Clone’s point blank blaster fire into the ceiling and escaping through the resulting hole. She then let Maul loose as a diversion, while she figured out what was going on with the Clone’s inhibitor chips and managed to get Rex’s out of his head.

The two of them only just managed to escape from the doomed cruiser when Maul destroyed the ship’s hyperdrive and stole the last transport—but they were unable to save the troopers Ahsoka refused to kill outright even in self defense as the cruiser crashed into a nearby planet.

Anakin pulled her more tightly against him as her tears intensified.

The horror Ahsoka had been through was unimaginably. At the same time, Anakin could not help but be very proud of her. He also felt something loosen in his heart that he had not been consciously aware was even there.

After his mother died in his arms, Anakin had increasingly feared the death of any of his loved ones—including Ahsoka. He had in fact watched her be murdered right in front of him on Mortis by the dark side ‘Son.’ The Light side ‘Daughter’ had averted another tragedy in his life, however, by allowing Anakin to use her fading life force to save Ahsoka.

While his life was filled with some pretty dysfunctional relationships, Anakin was diligent in maintaining the good physical and emotional boundaries that were in the best interest of his adolescent padawan. As he watched her come back to life, however, Anakin was overcome with overpowering relief, and gave her what at the time was a rare embrace.

Although Ahsoka walked off Mortis alive, the experience had been deeply scarring for Anakin, and after it his obsession with Ahsoka’s safety had only increased.

When she had later been abducted and hunted for sport by a group of Trandoshans, however, there was nothing Anakin could do to find or help her. Ahsoka had eventually made her way back to the Jedi Temple alive, and Anakin completely freaked out and quickly devolved into a mess of self-loathing and guilt.

“No Master, it wasn’t your fault,” Ahsoka had told him, “You already did everything you could—everything you had to do. When I was out there alone, all I had was your training and the lessons you taught me. And because of you, I did survive. And not only that, I was able to lead others to survive as well.”

It was Anakin’s own lesson that he did not always have to be physically present to protect her—a lesson that was now being renewed.

Beyond his remorse for all the terrible atrocities he had committed, Anakin realized that—outliving his thankfully false belief that this time Ahsoka had really died—he had long harbored an unconscious guilt that he had not been there to protect her during Order 66.

He had not been able to save Padmé, or protect himself from Palpatine or the other Jedi and Separatist leaders from the destructive force the Sith Lord had turned him into. In hindsight, however, Anakin now realized that he had in a way been able to rescue Ahsoka.

As powerful as he was in the ways of the Force, Anakin was perhaps a better teacher. Although it was doubtful Ahsoka could actually beat him in a real duel, she could definitely hold her own—and the fact she had triumphed over Maul and survived the Clone’s initial onslaught was a testament to both her high degree of expertise as a swordswoman and Anakin’s skill as an instructor.

After years of watching him do it, she was also quick thinking on her feet even in the most dire of situations—somehow figuring out what was going on while the Clones were all shooting at her, and not only saving herself but Rex as well.

While most of the other Jedi were slaughtered, Anakin had managed to equip his apprentice with the skills that she needed to survive Order 66. And although deeply marked by the traumatizing ordeal, she had made it out of the Clone Wars intact and alive.

None of that, however, was what Ahsoka needed to hear right now, and Anakin just silently held her and as she told him the end of her story.

“Rex and I pulled as many of the Trooper’s bodies from the crashed cruiser as we could so we could give them a proper burial . . . It took such a long time. When we finally had to stop, I just stood there looking at all their graves—so many of them marked with helmets they had painted for me.”

“By that point I’d also felt our Force bond break, and I thought that meant you were dead. I almost dropped my lightsabers there—to in some way mark your grave too—but at the last second I felt the Force prompting me to keep them. Rex and I left the planet and then decided it was safest to go our separate ways . . . As I watched him go, I knew in that moment I would never be happy again.”

Ahsoka’s bottom lip quivered for a moment before she completely broke down.

Anakin felt a wave of profound sadness radiated off her through the Force and slam into him, and he quickly pulled Ahsoka into his lap. She buried her face into his chest as she began to sob uncontrollably.

“Oh Snips . . .” Anakin said, as he wrapped both of his arms around her, “I am so sorry you went through all that! And I’m so sorry you have been carrying it around by yourself this whole time!”

She did not immediately reply, and Anakin just held her as she cried.

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to you!” she finally choked out between sobs.

“I distinctly remember you saying goodbye to me, Snips,” Anakin assured her.

“Yes—a ‘you’re being clinging, I still need space, and I’ll talk to you later’ goodbye. Not a ‘forever’ goodbye,” she replied as she began crying even harder.

Anakin drew her more fully into his embrace and enveloped her in his Force presence. He murmured soothingly into her montral as she cried for their men, and for Rex who she thought she would never see again. And especially as she finally felt the full force of her profound grief for Anakin whom she had thought was dead for three terrible years.

Eventually her tears slowed down. Anakin wiped them away before leaning down to kiss her—an unspoken reminder that in the end no forever goodbyes had been needed, and they had been back together and happy for a very long time.

It was a pleasant night with no wind and a sky filled with stars. Neither of them was in a hurry to return inside after what they had just been through—and unlike the first time they had come out here, Anakin did not forgo flinging his cloak onto the sand he had started hating less over the years before summarily tossing Ahsoka on top of it.

After that things had been different.

Freed from burdens they had been unconsciously carrying around for decades, both Anakin and Ahsoka experienced a new lightness of spirit. Their bond in the Force intensified, and neither could imagine it capable of getting stronger than it already was—or had any inkling of what was to come.

The first time the Force had connected them in a new and unimaginable way they had not even been on the same planet.

Along with Obi-Wan, Anakin was one of the best swordsmen the Jedi had ever produced, and he had been called upon to help train the New Jedi. Although Ahsoka and the rest of their family would have normally joined them, the family had been traveling a lot recently and both parents sensed that the kids really needed to stay home. With Ahsoka remaining with them, Anakin had arrived on Yavin IV alone.

Anakin genuinely enjoyed training the next generation in lightsaber combat and was invigorated by their progress. Mara, however, had pulled out some impressive moves on Anakin that he knew she had not learned from him. It recalled to mind who her original teacher in the ways of the Force had been, and Anakin was caught off-guard by just how triggering the abrupt reminder of Palpatine was for him.

He returned to his guest room in the training temple quite unsettled. In that moment Anakin desperately wished Ahsoka had come with, and vowed he was never coming here without her ever again.

Although filled with a desire for his wife’s comforting presence, Anakin was nonetheless shocked to turned around and find she was suddenly _there_.

They were both quite startled.

“Anakin, when did you get home?!” Ahsoka asked.

“What? No Ahsoka, how did you get _here_?!” he exclaimed.

“I’m in the kitchen, Anakin,” she replied.

“Well I’m still on Yavin IV,” Anakin replied before asking, “Can you see my surroundings? I can’t see yours.”

“Just you,” Ahsoka replied.

With Rex unquestioning covering for him in case Obi-Wan came by, Anakin had commed Padmé as much as he could during the endless Outer Rim sieges in the waning months of the Clone Wars. Their too brief time together always ended the same way—with Anakin reaching a hand out to Padmé’s holographic one and her reaching back. For as many heartbeats as they could they would stand with their hands appearing to join and looking deeply into each other’s eyes with intense longing.

As he had so many times with his first wife, Anakin now reached a hand out to Ahsoka—and felt a thrill of excitement and joy course through him as his fingers physically intertwined with her warm hand.

“How is this happening?” Anakin asked in bewilderment.

“I have no idea,” Ahsoka replied, “But whatever it is it’s very nice.”

Rising on her toes she kissed him. When they broke apart they just looked at each other in wonderment, before their incomprehensible connection through the Force that traversed the normal bounds of space and time eventually faded.

Anakin had never heard of a Force bond manifesting itself in such an incredible way before. True, he did not know any other pair of Force users who were married or romantically involved to the degree he and Ahsoka were.

Master Yoda would no doubt be _fascinated_ by the phenomena. Although the Jedi Grandmaster might know something about it, however, Anakin had no interest in sharing it with Master Yoda regardless of what insight he could possibly provide. Anakin considered that he might ask Luke and Mara about it someday, but at the same time it felt intensely personal and neither he nor Ahsoka openly spoke of it to anyone else.

Whatever the origins or their dramatically increased connection in the Force, it continued to happen with increasing frequency. Anakin and Ahsoka eventually learned how to intentionally open their intensified Force bond to the point they no longer bothered using a com to reach each other.

As they reached their twentieth wedding anniversary, therefore, their relationship had taken on a depth Anakin could not have previously conceived.

By that point in his meandering reflections, Anakin had arrived in Mos Eisley. He climbed out of the parked landspeeder, and as he walked along the dusty street towards his destination his mind wander to the rest of his children.

Unlike Luke and Leia, the younger Skywalker’s lives were pretty straightforward.

Shaak had not really been happy ever since Leia had left. Idolizing her older sister she unsurprisingly wanted to follow her into politics—much to Padmé’s but not Anakin’s amusement and delight. Last year Shaak had finally been old enough to spend the summer as an apprentice legislator. She had gone back again this summer, and the plan was for her to start formal studies on Hosnian Prime in the fall.

Plo was not only quite strong with the Force, but also interested in more intentionally cultivating his gift. He too had spent both last summer and the present one away with the New Jedi. After the upcoming trip home, he would also be leaving Tatooine for the training temple.

Rex was by far the most stable of Anakin’s children. While his siblings had set their sights elsewhere in the galaxy, however, he had taken the requisite Skywalker post-Palpatine tour of the galaxy—and come straight back home. When asked, Rex stated that he valued time around his parents and their former Captain more than anything life on a Core or Mid-Rim world could offer.

Ahsoka’s joy at having the Clone Captain living with their family on Tatooine was increased by her eldest son’s enjoyment in spending so much time with a man she admired and trusted so much. For his part, Rex the younger got a huge kick out of hearing Uncle Rex reflexively call his mother ‘Commander Tano,’ although she was no longer either a ‘Commander’ or a ‘Tano.’

Unlike Anakin and Ahsoka, moreover, the Clone Captain genuinely enjoyed moisture farming. His namesake also enjoyed the simple life, and was content with his plan to spend his life working the vaporators alongside the retired trooper.

Although Anakin was happy to have at least one of his kids want to stay home, as Rex grew into a young man, his father worried what kind of future his son would have in the barren desert on Tatooine.

Obi-Wan had once asked Anakin when he and Ahsoka planned to stop having kids.

In typical fashion, Anakin had replied that they would continue growing their family until they were either too old or when one of them tired of thumbing their nose at the Jedi Code.

Ahsoka had eventually said she was done. Anakin wasn’t really, but given there was little he could do to help in the process until a new addition joined the outside world he accepted her decision without complaint.

With Rex for the most part grown and the two youngest gone for the summer, however, last year had been Anakin and Ahsoka’s first taste of having an empty nest—and they both hated it. The homestead was too quiet, and there was suddenly a gaping hole in their days that was previously filled with caring for their children. Ahsoka had lasted two months before announcing to her husband that she wanted another baby. Anakin had been thrilled, and fast-forwarding to this summer ‘Cody’ would be arriving any day.

Anakin also now wished he had shared with his wife how badly he had wanted to have another kid for the last few years. Maybe if he had said something sooner they would have other children in addition to Cody, who would likely really be the last one.

If he had spoken up then maybe they’d have a little girl with a smile as bright as the twin suns, and the cutest dimples Anakin had ever seen.

Kind of like . . .

“Mista Ani!” a delighted little voice cried out.

Anakin had arrived alongside a house—that if he was being honest with himself—he had park the landspeeder so far away from his destination just to have an excuse to walk past. A wide smile broke over his face at the sight of the little girl who owned the voice.

Several small stones fell to the ground from where they had been floating in mid air, as the small figure ran towards him at full tilt. Upon arriving she wrapped herself around his shin and tightened her little arms arm around his calf. Anakin’s smile grew wider as he looked down. She had buried her face into his knee and all he could see was three buns sticking out the back of her head.

Anakin would wager she was about three-years-old, and her origin was a mystery. He had first noticed her about six months ago—her _shockingly_ strong Force signature a blinding light he could not miss. She had noticed him at the same moment—likely recognizing his own strength with the Force—and flashed him her megawatt smile.

How she had come to be on Mos Eisley Anakin still did not know. She currently lived under the care of a low level merchant whose shop the Skywalkers occasionally frequented. The brute of a man, however, only retained Anakin’s business so the Force user could periodically keep an eye on the man’s teenage daughter, whose welfare always seemed a bit precarious.

Although still a child herself, Trish was clearly tasked with caring for the new arrival—wherever she had come from—and Anakin’s visits to the shop increased in proportion to Trish’s progressively haggard appearance.

Master Yoda’s growth in personal humility did not extend to his belief in the importance of the Jedi in general. Force user lore and word of the New Order quickly spread throughout the galaxy, even reaching as far as the backwater of the Outer Rim in places like Mos Eisley. Once observing Rey sending a stone through the air to Anakin and him sending it back, Trish seemed relieved to know that he also had special ‘Jedi’ powers and could be a resource for what to do with Rey as she got older.

The temptation to simply take the malnourished girls home with him was overpowering at time. As a former Jedi who was highly critical of old Order’s methods of recruitment, however, Anakin knew he could not go around stealing other people’s kids. Unless Trish asked for his help or decided to leave—or something truly terrible happened—the Force user’s hands were tied.

Anakin looked up from where the little girl had suctioned herself to his leg, and frowned as he looked around.

“Rey, where’s your aunt?” he asked, concerned that she had been left alone near the open street.

Trish abruptly burst out of the back door of the shop. Her look of wild panic changed to one of relief as she saw Rey was with Anakin, and she rushed over to the pair.

“Anakin will you take her?” she asked without greeting or prelude.

“Trish?” Anakin asked, confused at how abruptly this situation was changing, “I’ll have to talk to my wife-”

“You have to take her _right now_!” Trish insisted.

Not waiting for his reply, she knelt down and spoke to Rey.

“You be a good girl and go with Mr. Anakin, alright?” she said.

After receiving a nod from the little girl, she rushed back inside without another word.

“Trish!” Anakin called, but she had already disappeared.

Anakin reached out through the Force. There was something very wrong inside the shop. There was usually something wrong in that house, however, and Anakin was unable to figure out what precisely was different.

Whatever the circumstances, it was not something Rey needed to witness. Anakin bent down and picked up the smiling little girl.

“Time for a nap, I think,” he told her, before putting her to sleep with the Force.

Holding Rey in one arm, Anakin unclipped his lightsaber from his belt as he walked towards the enclosure. As he approached the entrance he caught snippets of the occupants’ disturbing conversation.

“-She’s got special powers,” the shop owner said, “Growing market for kids like that—she’s worth quite a bit!”

“You can’t have her . . . the Jedi already took her,” Trish forcefully exclaimed.

“What have you done you wretched girl?!” her father yelled, “I’m selling you instead!”

Trish cried out as she was roughly grabbed.

“Fine, but she’ll only cover part of your debt,” another voice said.

Anakin’s large frame suddenly filled the doorway. He saw that several nasty looking men were present in the shop, one of them holding Trish by the upper arm.

“What is going on here?” Anakin asked, his tone low and deadly.

“None of your business! Now get out!” the shop owner barked.

In another version of galactic history, Anakin would have been the most hated and feared man in the entire galaxy. And while that possible future had not come to pass, the evil men in a small shop on Tatooine got a taste of the ‘Shadow of Vader.’

“I think not,” Anakin replied menacingly.

Like so many of the would be Sith Lord’s victims in another life—the men foolishly opened fire.

The sound of blasters discharging their deadly bolts suddenly filled the room and mingled with Trish’s screams. Anakin ignited his lightsaber, however, and it was all over very quickly.

Trish’s panic was replaced by shock as she looked down at her deadbeat father who had also fired on Anakin—and now lay on the ground, with a gaping hole in his chest from one of his own shots.

“Okay, this is what’s happening. You and Rey are both coming home with me, and we will figure the rest out later,” Anakin declared before asking, “Is there anything you want to bring right now?”

Trish wordlessly left the room, and soon came back with two snacks of clothing and personal affects for her and Rey. By that point Anakin had already boarded up the front door of the shop, and stacked the bodies out of the way before covered them with a nearby tarp.

Thankful that Rey was still asleep, Anakin returned his lightsaber to his belt and took the larger of the sacks from Trish in his free hand. Leading them all out the back door, Anakin sealed it behind them.

With the rescued girls in tow, Anakin walked onto the dusty street and began heading back towards the landspeeder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos appreciated!
> 
> Mara Jade is Luke's wife in the EU. She first appeared in the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn. She had a brief scene with Vader in the prequel "Allegiance," but I've always wished there were more.
> 
> I am also still in love with the idea of Anakin being Rey's adoptive father (especially after TROS).
> 
> Also if anyone is interested, I figured out a way to give Anakin a cannon compliant (through TLJ) happy ending. It's long, psychologically detailed, and not for everyone, but it does have a ton of redeemed Anakin in the happy ending (along with Ahsoka and Obi-Wan in the last 2 chapters that I'm still working on).
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060415/chapters/37497101


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After running into an old enemy and making some new friends, Anakin’s attempt to return home quickly with the rescued girls is spectacularly unsuccessful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. Wanted to get some new source material from the Mandalorian Season 2 before continuing. Thanks again for reading!

Anakin did not want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t come into town that afternoon—so chose not to.

With Rey still sleeping peacefully in one arm and Trish trudging silently behind, Anakin led them through the maze of narrow side streets back towards his parked landspeeder.

Stepping onto the main thoroughfare near the spaceport, the trio merged into what constituted heavy traffic on Tatooine. They had only taken a few steps, however, when a voice caught Anakin’s attention through the bustle and chatter of the other pedestrians—and the familiar cadence stopped him dead in his tracks.

“-It’s worth enough to level both our debts, Fennec. But I’m a dead man if I walk in alone-”

Ingrained in his memory by the thousands who shared it, the voice was one Anakin would recognize anywhere. His furtive glance finally landed on the owner of this rendition—who was _not_ a former clone trooper of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Boba Fett.

Given to clone donor Jengo Fett to raise with an unaltered growth rate, Boba had first crossed paths with Obi-Wan and Anakin when he was just a boy. The devious little punk had left quite an impression—after trying to kill them on several occasions—and been an unwelcome presence in the Jedi’s lives ever since.

The last time Anakin saw Fett was on Cloud City, where—after selling Leia’s identity to Maul and getting her hauled off to Palpatine—the bounty hunter was in the process of loading his distinctive ship with the cargo of frozen in carbonite Han Solo, with a view to collect the credits Jabba had placed on the smuggler’s head.

In saving his unwanted son-in-law from a trip to a Hutt dungeon, Anakin had shot Fett’s jetpack and sent him spinning out of control through Bespin’s gaseous atmosphere.

For most beings such a fate would have meant certain death.

Anakin, however, was not surprised to see Boba Fett alive and well, and strolling the streets of Mos Eisley in his father’s iconic Mandalorian armor.

The disreputable bounty hunter had not yet seen his former foe, and Anakin was hoping to keep it that way.

Turning away, Anakin casually passed Rey back to Trish. Calmly taking a knee he then pretended to examine the contents of one of the sacks—while surreptitiously unclipping his lightsaber from his belt.

As a ‘simple man making his way through the galaxy,’ Boba Fett was—as usual—clearly up to no good.

“Well I’m still in your debt,” the clone’s companion replied.

Obi-Wan was long fond of referring to Mos Eisley as a ‘wretched hive of scum and villainy,’ and out of habit and prudence Anakin kept loose tabs on the more unsavory characters that frequented the spaceport.

He resultantly recognized the woman with Fett as mercenary assassin Fennec Shand.

With the New Republic cracking down on the top crime syndicates who employed her, Fennec had fled to Tatooine. After falling out with the Hutts and onto hard times, however, she was ripe for one of Boba’s ‘deals.’

And Anakin could _not_ get involved.

He needed to get the rescued girls home—where his very pregnant wife was at this moment likely ‘lifting heavy things with the Force,’ and growing steadily more annoyed that he wasn’t back yet.

“Hey! . . . You two! . . . You stop right there!” a shrill voice yelled.

Anakin glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the locals storming after Fett and Shand—a hangar maintenance crew boss who’s name was on the tip of Anakin’s tongue.

“I saw what you’ve got in that bag . . . Hey! . . . HEY!” she shrieked.

Bounty hunter and assassin at last stopped and looked back at the woman who had followed them out of the Cantina and was now screaming in the middle of the street.

Anakin sighed. She was brave—he would hand her that—but in this case also incredibly foolish.

And Anakin could _not_ care what ill-gotten gains were inside Fett’s bag—no matter how much it prickled his Force sense even on Force dampened Tatooine.

He was confident he could spin his decision to save the girls instead of picking up vaporator parts to his wives with his ego intact. But going after Boba Fett would push the delay fully into the realm of ‘being late.’

And result in _unpleasant_ consequences.

Ahsoka would launch into her ‘You never listen!’ rant, which tended to get longer and more irrational the more pregnant she was. Given they were practically on top of her due date, today’s version would likely start with the time during their first ever mission together when Anakin apparently did not hear her calling for help from a ravine near Jabba’s Palace, where she was trying to stop a trio of Magna Droid’s from killing the Hutt’s kidnapped son—and go steadily down hill from there.

Padmé would smugly tell him ‘I told you so,’ in some fancy senatorial way, and note that one of the benefits of being dead was that she no longer had to deal with him destroying every schedule she ever had with his chronic tardiness. Actually, Anakin amended, she would deliberately say nothing—knowing Anakin would know full well what she was going to say without her actually saying it—which would be ten times more insufferable.

The other occupants of the street sensed that the situation was rapidly deteriorating, and hurried on their way. Next to him, Trish also took in the scene.

“Peli!” she cried.

_Keff._

Bystanders screamed as the bounty hunter at last fired a shot at the nuisance.

They were all startled into silence, however, when the blaster bolt stopped in mid air before reaching the woman.

From beneath his helmet, Boba’s eye’s scanned the onlookers for the interfering Force user, and finally landed on Anakin—who rose to face his old adversary.

For a few heart beats the two men locked eyes.

Before all hell broke loose.

Fett opened fire, sending the crowd of again panicked pedestrians scrambling out of the open street.

Well aware that Anakin would deflect his shots back with his lightsaber, the bounty hunter was confident that his superior armor could take the hit, and did not care.

Fennec grabbed Peli as a human shield. From behind the cover of her hostage, she unleashed barrage on the meddling Force user as she and Fett made for a nearby hangar.

Anakin went after them, careful to stay in front of the girls and shield then from stray bolts.

Rey was still sound asleep in a Force induced nap. Trish had thankfully stayed rooted to the ground in a combination of terror and confidence that Anakin would protect her if she didn’t move.

“Stay here!” Anakin called over his shoulder, as he pressed on after the renegades.

The pair had reached the hangar, and although he was gaining on them, Anakin knew he was running out of time.

As he stepped farther away from Rey, however, Anakin could no longer ignore what his Force sense had been telling him all along. There was something—someone—strong with the Force inside Fett’s bag. But the bag was tiny, too small to hold a person. Deflecting the blaster bolts on pure instinct, his mind raced to figure out the puzzle.

And in that moment the ambient sound around him abruptly dimmed.

Anakin sighed, as for once he felt the full inconvenience of his Force bond with Ahsoka.

“Almost home?” she asked as she stepped into view.

“Um . . .” he replied, well aware she could now see him as well.

“Anakin, are you getting _shot at?!_ ” she exclaimed in a tone of deep exasperation with not the slightest concern for his safety.

Caught red-handed ‘getting distracted,’ disclosing the truth was unavoidable.

“I may have run into Boba Fett,” he said.

“Boba Fett!” Ahsoka replied.

“Sorry Snips—gotta go!” he told her, more to avoid—well delay at least—the wrath of his angry Togruta than because he was in any danger of missing a blaster bolt.

“ANAKI-” Ahsoka cried.

Before she could finish yelling at him, however, Anakin broke off the connection.

Still taking fire, Anakin burst into the hangar—where Fett’s ship was just lifting off.

Anakin was just preparing to leap after it into the still lowered gangplank, when Fennec threw Peli out as a final deterrent.

Falling through the air, Peli yelled with the full power of her mighty lungs. Even as Anakin caught her through the Force to slow her descent, the hangar boss continued to shriek her head off until her feet were safely on the ground.

With Peli out of danger, Anakin looked up to see that _Slave I_ had risen too high for even a Force user to reach with a jump.

But not for _another_ Mandalorian with a jetpack—like the one who appeared out of nowhere and gave chase.

Until he was hit with an ion canon beam, and he too dropped out of the sky.

Anakin caught him, and as he slowed the armored man’s descent with a wave of his hand, he reflected that the Mandalorian was fortunate the modified Firespray-31-class patrol and attack craft had open fired with its ion cannon and not a ship destroying concussion missile, which would have vaporized him. The ship was still relatively close to the ground, however, and a seismic charge would have demolished a large section of the spaceport—landing Boba in even more trouble with the Hutts than he apparently already was.

Ion cannons, thankfully, did more damage to electronics than people. Saved from a fatal fall by the Force user, the Mandalorian was just knocked out.

No sooner had Anakin gently lowered the unconscious man to the ground, however, than another woman burst into the hangar. The tattoo on her bicep identified her as ex-military—like a drop trooper for the Rebellion. She also looked as if given the chance she could break even Anakin in half.

Her eyes, however, were at present fixed on the Mandalorian’s unmoving body—a look of shock and intense pain coming over her face.

“NO!” the woman shouted.

Dropping to her knees, she cradled him in her strong arms.

“Din! Din!—Stay with me buddy! Stay with me!” she cried.

Moved by the woman’s considerable anguish, Anakin tamped down his desire to beat a hasty retreat back to the girls.

“He’ll be alright. He’s not dead. I caught him before he hit the ground,” Anakin informed her with deliberate vagueness.

Taking a knee next to the woman, he reached out to remove the unconscious man’s helmet so he could get more air.

“Wait! Don’t take off his helmet!” she said, with a restraining hand on Anakin’s forearm.

Having spent less time on Mandalore than Obi-Wan and Ahsoka, Anakin was nonetheless aware that the warrior race’s Creed was just as weird as the Jedi Code.

“Suit yourself,” Anakin replied as he rose to standing.

With everyone out of mortal danger for the moment, he was about to make his escape—when a panicked Trish arrived, carrying Rey and dragging both sacks.

“Anakin!” she cried.

The former Jedi cringed at the girl’s identifying declaration.

“Oh _Anakin!_ Thank the Force!” Peli exclaimed with over exuberance.

Stuck in a daze of complete bafflement as to how she was still alive, Peli was at last able to put the pieces together.

“Anakin?— _Anakin_ _Skywalker?!_ ” the woman on the ground asked.

His heart sank a little further.

In one of his many unbecoming for a Jedi traits, Anakin used to love being famous. He enjoyed it when his ‘reputation proceeded him’ as the best Jedi General in the Grand Army of the Republic, and relished his ‘Hero With No Fear’ moniker.

Now he was much less enamored with the situation—which tended to result in someone _desperately_ needing his help when all he wanted to do was go home.

Today was going to be no different.

“Oh please don’t go! We need your help!” the woman exclaimed.

Because of course she did.

Before Anakin could inform her that—regrettably—he was unavailable and she was going to have to take care of her own problems, her companion began to stir.

“Cara?” he asked groggily.

Planning to slip away while ‘Cara’ was distracted by the now awake ‘Din,’ Anakin returned to his own companions.

While Rey was also beginning to wake up, Trish looked ready to pass out. Taking the little girl back from the exhausted teen, Anakin grabbed both sacks with his free hand, and made for the exit.

Peli, however, began yelling at the revived Mandalorian, and their conversation again paused the Force user’s retreat.

“The bounty hunter has the Child!” Peli cried.

“I know!” Din replied as he sat up, “I thought I could trust him as another Mandalorian—but he double-crossed me!”

With resignation, Anakin turned back around.

“Boba Fett is not Mandalorian—and his main allegiance is to his credit purse,” he interjected.

“I gathered that,” Din replied testily.

“At the Cantina I overheard him and Fennec say something about both having debts to Jabba,” Peli said.

“Then that’s where they’re taking him,” the Mandalorian replied as he moved to sit up.

Unsure how he was still alive when the last thing he remembered was chasing Fett’s ship high into the air with his jetpack, Din began experimentally moving his limbs and assessing for damage—more than a little surprised there apparently was none.

It was then that he and Cara recalled that she was still clinging to him. From beneath his helmet his eyes met hers—both remembering back to the shot up bar on Nevarro where Cara had shielded his broken body with her own from blaster bolts and the flametrooper’s oncoming inferno, while she impassionedly refused to leave him despite his insistence.

The pair also suddenly remembered that this was something they only did when one of them was injured.

With an awkward cough, Cara let Din go and helped him to his feet.

“Boba Fett took a child?” Anakin asked, concerned and more than a little confused.

“Sorry, who are you?” Din asked in reply.

“That’s _Anakin Skywalker!_ ” Cara told him.

“Is that supposed to impress me?” Din asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “He’s a Jedi.”

Anakin did not bother to correct her.

“Then definitely no,” the Mandalorian said emphatically.

“He did just save your life—and don’t you think it would be helpful to have a Force sensitive adult along while we’re trying to rescue a Force sensitive kid?” Cara countered.

That caught Anakin’s attention.

“What?” he asked, a new edge coming into his voice.

Din did not answer him. Instead he turned fully to Cara.

“Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked insistently, “-in private.”

Anakin could confidently guess the gist of their discussion without having to hear a word.

Mandalorians had been sworn enemies of the Jedi for hundreds if not thousands of years. While the Jedi’s archenemies were the Sith, the militant race had no greater foe than their lightsaber wielding counterparts. Although not Force sensitive, the Mandalorians were nonetheless worthy adversaries as both groups vied for status as ultimate warrior in the galaxy.

Din was clearly hard-core about the Creed, and had reservations about accepting Anakin’s help.

Unable to bring himself to leave before the safety of the _other_ Force sensitive child who was in danger on Tatooine this afternoon was ensured, Anakin resolved to wait out Din and Cara’s discussion.

Both having endured traumatizing days, Peli and Trish now stood in the shade consoling each other. Anakin sank to sitting and set Rey on the ground beside him.

Having missed all the life threatening excitement, she was now filled with all the excitement and energy of a toddler awakened from an invigorating nap. Spying a stray nut lying nearby, Rey stretched out one little hand and sent it floating towards him.

Anakin grinned. This was the Force user toddler game he found most adorable, and had been bitterly disappointed when Ben quickly grew out of it. Anakin let the nut hang suspended in midair for a heartbeat before passing it back, eliciting a delighted squeal from Rey.

Once out of earshot of the others, Din rounded on Cara.

“No!—Bo-Katan said the only Jedi she really trusts is a Togruta named ‘Ahsoka Tano’ and as far as she knows she didn’t survive the war!” he declared.

In response to him emphatically cutting the air with is hand, Cara crossed her arms and her eyes hardened.

“We’re returning him to his own kind—his _people_ —not the Jedi!” Din added insistently.

“Well, first we have to get him back,” Cara noted.

Din glanced over at Anakin, who was sitting on the ground next to the little girl. She giggled as she repeatedly sent something metal towards him with a wave of her little hand, and he likewise sent it back to her—his smiling widening as she let out a peel of laughter each time it returned to her palm.

_Often it is necessary to set aside old prejudices for the sake of one who is loved._

The thought passed through Din’s mind unbidden—and sounded an awful lot like something Kuiil would say.

_I have spoken._

Conceding that if the noble Ugnaught had been there that is exactly what he would have told the Mandalorian—and as usual been right—Din let out a resigned sigh, and walked back towards the main group.

Anakin glanced up at him, “If it makes you feel any better, I’m not a Jedi anymore and have plenty of my own issues with the Order.”

Din found that actually it did.

“The Child has special abilities like this little one,” Din began, inclining his helmet towards Rey.

“I’ve been charged with protecting him until I can return him to his own people,” he told Anakin, adding with difficulty, “Your assistance in rescuing him from the Hutts would be greatly appreciated.”

Anakin rose to face the Mandalorian and nodded in assent.

Inwardly, however, the Force user groaned.

Ahsoka was going to kill him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as much as I loved the Boba Fett team up and thought it fit well with the story they were telling in Season 2, I did feel it was a bit out of character and was waiting for a double cross the whole time (and loved the conflict between him and Bo-Katan). Having him get back to being ‘Boba Fett’ and taking over Jabba’s empire in the end trailer put a huge smile on my face.
> 
> Next up, a visit to still alive Jabba himself, as no Leia strangling him to death in this AU. (If she was ever captured, I think Anakin’s reaction to her metal bikini slave outfit would be to again go full Vader, and raze Jabba’s palace to the ground after killing everyone :D).
> 
> Thanks again for reading! Comments and kudos much appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin and the Mandalorian pay a visit to still alive Jabba the Hutt in their ongoing quest to rescue the Child.

With the Mandalorian having successfully secured Anakin’s assistance, the band of rescuers prepared to head out.

The boss of this particular hangar had wisely decided to kiss off whatever fees Boba Fett owed him, and the maintenance crew was no where to be seen as the group vacated the empty docking bay and Peli led them to her hangar were Din’s ship was parked.

Leaving the two girls in the care of the formidable trio, Anakin grabbed the sacks and went to retrieve his landspeeder. He arrived at Docking Bay 35 to find Peli and her mushroom-headed repair droids reviving everyone with soup.

“Bones!” Rey announced.

“Yum,” Anakin replied.

Peli handed him a bowl, and Anakin gulped down the contents to rehydrate.

Watching the exchange, the Mandalorian grew despondent—remembering back to all the times the Child had eaten soup. As if reading his mind, Cara stroked his arm where the armor was thinnest.

“We’ll have him back soon,” she soothed.

With the touch of a button on his wrist, Din lowered the gangplank of the Razor Crest.

“Pre-Empire gunship—nice,” Anakin said.

“Somehow managed to not be impounded by the Imps. She’s served me well,” Din replied.

Anakin loaded his landspeeder, which just managed to fit into the cargo hold.

Peli offered to watch the girls while the adults were off ‘seeking adventure’ and rescuing the Child. The way this day was going, however, Anakin half expected friends of the goons he had taken out in the shop to show up and grab Rey—who he would then have to rescue again following the recovery of Din’s kid.

Already in a hole and continuing to dig with regard to getting home in a reasonable amount of time, Anakin was still hoping to keep catastrophes to a minimum. Although grateful for Peli’s offer, he decided it would be better if the girls stayed with him.

“You get that little womp rat back in one piece, you hear!” Peli called to Din in parting as the rising gangplank obscured her from view.

The party settled into the Razor Crest in preparation for a relatively short flight.

At the bow of the cargo hold was a compartment boasting a comfortable looking nest of blankets. Din hesitated only moment before motioning for the girls to climb in. Trish was asleep with Rey in her arms before the door slid closed. Anakin followed the adults up into the cockpit. He and Cara strapped into the passenger seats behind the Mandalorian as the ship lifted off.

As the Razor Crest flew over the Great Mesra Plateau, Anakin broke the silence.

“So full beskar armor . . . that must have set you back,” he commented.

The Mandalorian replied with a noncommittal grunt.

“Personally, I think having everyone try to kill me for it every time I turned around would get really annoying, and make it more trouble than it’s worth,” Anakin glibly noted before adding as an afterthought, “It’s impressive though.”

Cara bit her lip in an effort to hide her mirth.

Din was unamused.

With their brief attempt at idle chitchat only intensifying the awkwardness in the cockpit, the trio fell back into silence for the remainder of the trip to Jabba’s.

A high-ranking member of the five families’ ‘Grand Hutt Council,’ his Excellency Jabba Desilijic Tiure of Nal Hutta, Eminence of Tatooine, was a renowned and distinguished gangster.

Before the fall of the Republic the crime lord split time between Tatooine and his vast estate on the Hutt’s swampy home planet of Nal Hutta. As the galaxy descended further into unrested, first with the Clone Wars and then into the much longer civil war, however, the Hutt increasingly ruled his underworld empire from his desert residence—a converted monastery now known colloquially as ‘Jabba’s Palace.’

Nestled near a ravine on the Great Mesra Plateau just south of the Dune Sea, the fortified rotunda was located in the middle of nowhere half way between Mos Espa and Mos Eisley. Anakin suspected that the Hutt had selected the location in part because he enjoyed being as inconvenient as possible to visit, and having associates go considerably out of their way to be graced by his presence was a further boost to the Hutt’s massive ego.

Forgoing the palace’s underground hangar—a death trap to all who were not presently ‘in favor’—Din set the Razor Crest down in the large ravine at the base of the path that led up to the fortress.

Leaving the girls to rest, the adults prepared for the next phase of the operation.

Cara grabbed an impressively large blaster from the ship’s arsenal and slung it over her shoulder.

“I’ll cover you,” she told Din.

Glancing between the Mandalorian and the Rebel Drop Trooper, Anakin sensed the words were heavily infused with unspoken meaning.

It was clear that the pair were sort of on their way to being together. Whatever they had going on, however, it was very slow burn, with their flirting likely consisting of covering each other during combat, arm-wrestling, and overly long mission planning.

Anakin personally didn’t do slow burn—to which both his wives could attest—but to each their own.

He had not come with them, however, to babysit their ship while the two non-Force users attempted to get the kidnapped Child back from a chronically unreasonable Hutt.

“Wait, do either other you even speak Huttese?” he interjected.

The question recalled the pair to his existence.

“And we can’t leave the girls alone,” he added.

Din shot Cara a look—a reminder that it was her idea to bring Anakin along, and there was no way the Mandalorian was leaving his kid’s fate in someone else’s hands.

“I’ll stay here, and watch the ship and the girls,” Cara amended the plan.

“If there’s any trouble seal yourself in and engage ground security protocols,” Din instructed.

“Copy that,” she replied, “But com if you need me to come in after you. I can show Trish how to turn on the ship’s security.”

“Will do,” Din assured her.

“Just get him back . . . and take care of yourself,” Cara added.

“You too,” he answered.

With Din and Cara at last done with their unnecessarily long goodbye, the Mandalorian and the Force user headed out.

As the afternoon suns unrelentingly beat down, the two men trudged up the rocky path in silence until they reached the entrance to the fortress.

After raising the hood of his cloak to obscure his face, Anakin pounded on the citadel’s unnecessarily large front door.

In response a comically small hole opened in the vast slab of durasteel, and a mechanical eye on a stick emerged to aggressively ask for identification.

Sensing Din’s urge to reach out and violently snap off the gatewatcher droid’s mechanical eye, Anakin put a restraining hand on the Mandalorian’s forearm. The Force user didn’t fault the other man’s urge to let anxiety spill over into a rash outburst. Anakin certainly never wanted any of his kids setting foot in this place.

< Mandalorian bounty hunter and companion to see his High Exaltedness, > Anakin told the droid in Huttese.

After jerkily taking a closer look at each man, the gatekeeper disappeared back into its hole. Loud mechanical grinding preceded the large door beginning to rise off the ground—as the semi-intelligent droid unwisely but thankfully let them in.

The two men walked forward into the eerily dark corridor—made darker still by the blast door closing ominously behind them to irrevocably set their course.

A pair of Gamorrean guards stepped out of the shadows, and with crossing axes blocked the path. Anakin forced choked the pig-lizards against their respective walls without batting an eyelash, and he and Din continued on.

Descending the stairs to the main throne room, they were next confronted by Jabba’s majordomo, Bib Fortuna. Judging by the obesity of the chief steward—who was by far the ugliest Twi'lek of Anakin’s acquaintance—peacetime had not hurt the Hutt’s bottom line.

Principal among Fortuna’s many duties in running the palace was ensuring his master was not bothered by trivial matters, and the Twi'lek surged forward to intercept the interlopers.

In response to Fortuna’s insistent demand for them to halt, Anakin gave a subtly wave of his hand as he reached out through the Force.

“You will take us to Jabba now,” he declared.

< I will take you to Jabba now, > Fortuna echoed—now under the control of Anakin’s Jedi mind trick.

With the Twi'lek in the lead they continued on, but at the base of the stairs the next wave of palace henchmen moved to disarm the visitors. Although both he and Din would be far from helpless if temporarily relieved of their most obvious weapons, Anakin hoped to keep this whole affair as straightforward as possible.

“They can keep their weapons,” Anakin said.

< They can keep their weapons, > Fortuna parroted to the goons, who backed off.

The stairway opened into the main throne room of the Hutt’s Castle—which rivaled the seediest of spaceport cantinas.

It was hard to believe there were any more gangsters, bounty hunters, or scum elsewhere in the galaxy, since at first glance they all seemed to be here. They lurked in the shadows at the edge of the large room, consuming copious amounts of libations. As Anakin quickly scanned the throng, however, he noted that Fett and Shand appeared to have prudently forgone the privileges that accompanied being back in favor with the Hutts, and were nowhere in sight.

Unlike the rest of the chamber, a beam of sunlight lit the center, which was free of clutter and riffraff. A lithe and barely clad green Twi'lek glided across the stone floor interlaid with durasteel grating. As the band—which had been poached from the Mos Eisley Cantina—played an upbeat and catchy tune, she somehow managed to not trip over her chains while performing an evocative dance in the preferred taste of the Hutts.

And reclining on a raised dais in all his revolting flab was Jabba the Hutt.

Fanned by a serving Jawa as he watched the performance of his current slave dancer, the Hutt alternated between taking puffs from his hookah and snacking on wriggling Klatooine paddy frogs, which were periodically snagged from a nearby aquarium.

Many—including Anakin—would really love to strangle Jabba. So far, however, no one had managed to so much as locate the Hutt’s fatty neck.

At another wave of Anakin’s hand, Fortuna approached the dais to make the necessary introductions.

< Master, Mandalorian bounty hunter and companion- >

< Skywalker! > Jabba roared.

The Hutt’s eyes widened at the sight of the familiar Force user, before he turned his gaze and his wrath on his steward and shoved him off his feet, < I told you never to admit any Jedi, you weak minded fool!—He’s using an old Jedi mind trick! >

At their host’s outburst, the band abruptly stopped playing, and everyone stared at the intruders. With a myriad of hostile eyes on him, Anakin stepped forward into the light at the center of the chamber, and lowered his hood.

Unfortunately, Hutts were not similarly susceptible to the mental influences of the Force, which left bargaining as the main option to get Din’s kid back.

< Mighty Jabba, we have come for the Child recently delivered into your possession by Boba Fett, > Anakin began.

< Come for one of your own kind, have you? I’m surprised to have a buyer so soon—I haven’t even put the word out yet, > Jabba replied.

< This Mandalorian bounty hunter seeks to be reunited with his companion. I am here to help negotiate, Your High-exalted Master of the Hutts, > Anakin corrected with the necessary obsequiousness before adding, < With your wisdom, I’m sure that we can work out a mutually beneficial arrangement. >

His huge eyes still fixed his on Anakin, Jabba’s gaze hardened.

< You can start by bringing me your worthless son-in-law and the small fortune he still owes me! The outstanding interest alone is worth more than the price I put on his head! > Jabba declared.

In learning that the roguish smuggler still had not paid off his debt to the Hutt, Anakin decided that any bounty on Han would be collected cold—because Anakin was going to kill him.

< How about picking something that isn’t a sentient being, > the former Jedi replied, his own eyes narrowing.

< 2 million credits, > Jabba countered.

< 2 million credits?! That’s outrageous! > Anakin shot back.

< The Imperials will pay much more, > Jabba informed him.

Although the Hutt’s declaration rang true, the Force user could tell from Jabba’s sense that he was also well aware of the inconvenient perils of dealing with even the remnant of the Empire.

As Anakin continued to glare at Jabba he internally resigned himself to the situation as usual devolving into ‘aggressive negotiations,’ and prepared to call his lightsaber off his belt. Searching the palace for the Child would be a bloody messy affair, but it looked like that’s what the former Jedi and the Mandalorian were in for.

From behind him, however, Din strode forward and dropped something metal onto the dais. It hit the stone with a piercingly pure tone that was out of place in Jabba’s chaotic lair.

“Beskar—worth at least that much,” Din said.

Glancing at the bounty hunter, Anakin realized that the offering was one of the Mandalorian’s shoulder guards.

“I will pay the ransom for the safe return of the Child,” Din declared.

Before Anakin could translate a single syllable into Huttese, however, Jabba abruptly hit a button.

And the floor beneath Din’s feet vanished.

< Why should I settle for a single piece of beskar armor when I can have the whole set! > Jabba replied with uproarious laughter.

The weird little Kowakian monkey-lizard lounging in the crook of the Hutt’s tail began to cackle and the rest of the court joined in.

“More trouble than it’s worth,” Anakin muttered as he jumped down after the Mandalorian.

The shoot dumped them out into a sandy caverned filled with the bones of those who had double-crossed or offended Jabba in some minor way, and dancers who didn’t want to be licked.

Watching through the grate from above, Jabba and his court chortled with glee as a blast door creaked slowly open to reveal a rancor.

The beast roared as it slowly advanced into the room.

Anakin and Din exchanged glances.

The onlookers jubilation was a bit premature given that both men were still armed. Din drew his blaster, but Anakin again stayed his hand.

The hideous monster was Jabba’s beloved pet—a birthday gift from the devoted Fortuna. Killing it would only enrage the Hutt and hurt their chances of getting the Child back safely.

They needed another way out.

In unison, the former Jedi with a lightsaber and the Mandalorian still wearing a jetpack looked up.

Anakin called his lightsaber into his hand and ignited it, as Din got a firm grip on his torso and rose into the air.

With well-practiced efficiency, Anakin sliced a circular section out of the grating and dropped it into the pit below, before he and Din rocketed back into the throne room.

The court’s cries of anger at being robbed of their entertainment mingled with the rancor’s roar of rage at the disappearance of its meal. Seeing the newly created opening in the protective durasteel bars, the beast reached through with its long claws. Managing to snag an unfortunate Gamorrean who had been standing too close to the now gaping hole, it dragged the green guard into its waiting jaws as the rest of the court scrambled out of reach.

Giving the compromised grate a wide berth, Din deftly set them down in front of the dais.

“Nice try Jabba,” Anakin said switching to Basic—fully aware the Hutt could understand him and only used a translator as part of his power play—“You’ve been made a more than reasonable offer . . . I suggest you take it.”

Lightsaber still ablaze, Anakin then brandished the blue blade in the Hutt’s face.

“There are after all other ways of resolving this,” Anakin menaced.

With their eyes locked, they both remembered back to the last time Anakin was here—and Jabba had met a very different Anakin Skywalker than the sweet boy who had won a major podrace in Mos Espa.

Anakin was looking for Ahsoka—his plucky, over exuberant, begrudgingly accepted new apprentice. He’d known her less than a day, but if anything had happened to her Anakin was fully prepared to kill Jabba, his entire court, and raze the palace to the ground—intergalactic political ramifications be damned.

“What have you done with my padawan?” Anakin demanded, his voice as low and deadly as the hum of his lightsaber now inches from Jabba’s neck.

< You came here to kill me! > the Hutt screamed.

“Mighty Jabba, I came here to negotiate!” Anakin declared, his lightsaber blade unmoving.

< You came here to die! > Jabba replied with fury.

Ahsoka showed up in the nick of time to halt the looming violence and reunite Jabba with his kidnapped Huttlet.

In thanks, however, Jabba ordered both their executions.

“Does this always happen to you?” Ahsoka asked.

“Every where I go,” Anakin replied.

Standing back to back with lightsabers ignited, the pair prepared for battle—which was averted by Padmé comming the Hutt from Coruscant to smooth talk them both out of trouble.

Neither woman was here this time around, and Anakin was uncertain how this meeting would end.

Jabba, however, let out a bellowing laugh.

< Ho ho ho ho ho! Ah ha ha ha ha! Skywalker, Skywalker! Fearless and inventive as always! > he boomed.

Delighted at being threatened just enough to earn his respect, Jabba waved his disproportionately small hand. A large Askajian woman stepped out of the shadows and approached the dais—her headdress and six breasts wobbling as she strode forward carrying a tiny blanketed bundle.

While Anakin stayed alert for any further treachery on the part of the Hutt, Din only had eyes for the precious cargo as he surged forward to intercept. The Askajian carefully transferred the bundle into the Mandalorian’s outstretched arms, and wiped a parting tear from her eye.

As Din drew the swaddled kid into a secure embrace, Anakin sensed that the Child was happy but not surprised that the Mandalorian was there to rescue him.

“Sorry you had to wait so long,” Din said in a low gentle tone.

The Child’s only reply was to nestle into the bounty hunter’s armor.

Their mission accomplished, the two men nodded at Jabba and made for the exit. As they ascended the stairs they heard the band picking up where it had left off as the never-ending party resumed.

Once outside, Din unwrapped the rescued kid, and Anakin got his first good look at him.

And a startling surprise.

Not only was Din’s kid not human—as Anakin had unconsciously assumed that, like Rey, he would be—but his features gave the Force user quite a shock.

The tiny creature’s huge ears, green skin, and three-fingered little claws were simultaneously strikingly familiar and quite different to the one’s burned into Anakin’s mind.

He had questions—so many questions.

But they would all have to wait.

Because two Imperial drop ships had just descended out of the sky and touched down between them and the Razor Crest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! All the comments and kudos are much appreciated!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After rescuing the Child, Anakin and Din prepare to take on a platoon of stormtroopers.

The gangplanks of the Imperial transports lowered and—true to form—the stormtroopers came out firing.

“Go, go! Move out!” the captain barked.

“Over there, over there!” one yelled.

“Blast them!” cried another.

Anakin and Din ducked behind the meager cover of an outcropping of boulders, as red bolts lit up the canyon.

With several squadrons of stormtroopers separating them from the _Razor Crest_ and closing in on their position, Anakin reflected that getting home before the guests arrived and Ahsoka completely lost it was now the least of his concerns.

“We’ve got company!” Cara’s voice crackled through Din’s com.

With his blaster free hand, the Mandalorian yanked it from his belt.

“Yeah, we’ve noticed,” Din answered back before adding, “You’ll have to come get us.”

“Wait, hang on a second . . . ” Anakin exclaimed.

Another quick glance confirmed that his eyes were not playing tricks on him. As if on cue, another ship had appeared on the horizon and was rapidly approaching.

An extremely familiar ship.

And Anakin knew that—as she had many many times before—Ahsoka was coming to rescue him.

Both Anakin and Ahsoka had new armor forged before taking on—and out—Maul’s dark side Inquisitors on behalf of the Jedi and the New Republic. After Anakin abruptly ended their Force bond conversation, Ahsoka had donned hers, made some quick adjustment to account for her present condition, grabbed her lightsabers, and stormed out of the homestead to disentangle her husband from his latest escapade.

Between her natural hunting ability and their enhanced Force bond, Ahsoka found that she could now also track him through the Force. With the Rexes packed aboard the Skywalker family’s current ship, she flew north—not the least bit surprised that whatever Anakin had gotten swept up in apparently involved a trip to Jabba’s.

She _was_ surprised to find him taking cover behind a boulder next to a Mandalorian bounty hunter while taking heavy blaster fire from a platoon of stormtroopers.

Leaving her son as pilot while Rex expertly manned the guns, Ahsoka lower the gangplank in midair and took a flying leap out of the ship to join the battle below.

As if in slow motion, Anakin watched her sail through the air.

No matter how great she was with child, Ahsoka was still a warrior. Radiating the glow of motherhood, she flew—lightsabers ablaze, long lekku tossed about in the turbulence from the ship’s engine—a look of fierce determination on her face.

She was a glorious vision that Anakin knew he would never forget.

Landing with a roll, Ahsoka rose and launched her attack. Held in her customary reverse grip, her lightsabers whirled and danced—a dizzying blur as they blocked and reflected bolt after bolt of blaster fire.

In a spot not far from here, fourteen-year-old Ahsoka had defeated a fearsome trio of _Magna_ Guard droids all by herself with Jabba’s Huttlet son strapped to her back. She had grown considerably since then in both swordsmanship and the ways of the Force—as the doomed stormtroopers soon discovered.

Refusing to cower behind a rock while his wife engaged the enemy alone, Anakin took a flying leap of his own and landed next to her. As they had through innumerable battles throughout the Clone Wars, the duo fought side by side.

Although fighting with a much larger force, the Imperials quickly realized they were outmatched and moved to set up an E-Web heavy repeating blaster.

They did not manage to fire a single shot with their heavy artillery, however, as Rex sniped anyone who got near it until Anakin lifted it high into the air with the Force and smashed it against a boulder. It exploded in a fireball and rained shrapnel and rock fragments upon the troops taking cover below.

A frontal assault was not the stormtroopers only source of woe. While the drop ships they had arrived in provided reasonable rear cover, Cara still managed to get rounds through the gaps between the spacecrafts, and do considerable damage with the _Razor Crest’s_ laser cannons.

Between the formidable trio of the 501st, a bounty hunter with expert marksmanship, and a former Rebel drop trooper blasting away with the _Razor Crest’s_ guns, the skirmish did not last long. Before the stormtroopers could even think about initiating a ceasefire and retreating they were all vanquished.

Not wanting his pregnant wife ‘lifting heavy things with the Force,’ Anakin was even less enthused with Ahsoka and their unborn child getting shot at, and he was happy that the battle had been brief and uneventful.

In the sudden quiet of the aftermath, the Force users turned to face each other.

It seemed in poor taste to apply their contest for who could take out more battle droids to human stormtroopers. Anakin, however, was sure that like him Ahsoka had nonetheless counted out of habit—and would be declared the victor if they tallied this round.

“All clear?” their son’s voice came through his mother’s comlink.

“Keep the shields up! Those troops came from somewhere!” Anakin barked to his son in the cockpit, suddenly conscious that the danger was not yet averted.

Cara had come to a similar conclusion, and the _Razor Crest’s_ shields remained at full power.

Rex, dutifully scanned Tatooine’s orbit and reported it was free of enemy ships.

The former Jedi General known for fighting in front with his men, however, had trouble believing any commander would so callously abandon their troops.

“Check again!” Anakin commanded.

“Dad, I’m telling you—the only ships out there are the _Falcon_ , Luke’s X-wing, Mara flying one of the Jedi Temple’s freighters, and a pair of starfighters from Rogue squadron,” his son insisted.

Anxiety unabated, Anakin’s mind whirled.

_Luke’s X-wing . . ._

“Rex, hail Artoo,” Anakin ordered.

Soon a series of familiar beeps twittered questioningly through Ahsoka’s com. After a tense exchange with his beloved master, the little astromech soon confirmed Rex’s report that the space around Tatooine was free of enemy spacecrafts.

Confident that if Artoo said there were no Imperial ships left orbiting Tatooine, then there really were none remaining, Anakin at last relaxed.

Until he looked up at his wife, and recalled that he personally was far from being in the clear.

“How Anakin?!” Ahsoka exclaimed as she flung her arms wide to embrace the scene of mass carnage, “How did you get into _this_ much trouble without even _leaving the planet?!”_

Anakin had no idea how he was going to so much as attempt to construct a response with even a semblance of rationality. Any attempt to explain himself, however, would begin with her name, so he started there.

“Ahsoka-”

In typical Skywalker fashion that ended up being all he needed to say.

“Ahsoka? . . . _Ahsoka Tano?!_ ” Din interjected.

“Umm, yeah,” she replied, turning to regard the bounty hunter.

“Bo-Katan told me about you,” he said.

“Bo-Katan is alive?!” Ahsoka exclaimed.

“Yes, and she told me if you were still around you were the one I should talk to,” Din continued.

“I hope it’s about him,” she answered, catching sight of the little green head peaking out of a bag that the Mandalorian had slung over his shoulder.

Din extracted the Child so Ahsoka could get a better look at him.

Ahsoka crouched down in front of the little creature. She extended a hand in greeting, and sported a wide smile as he clasped one of her fingers in his tiny claw.

Delighted that his wife was now fully distracted from yelling at him, Anakin took a knee beside her.

Together they reached out through the Force to the tiny creature.

“Is he speaking? . . . Do you understand him?” Din asked.

“In a way. Grogu, Anakin, and I can all feel each other’s thoughts,” Ahsoka replied.

“Grogu?” Din asked in confusion.

“Yes . . . that’s his name,” she told him.

The Mandalorian repeated the name, and the Child looked up—his ears perking as he let out an inquisitive coo.

“He was raised at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant . . . Many masters trained him over the years,” Ahsoka began relaying what the Child told them.

A tone of sorrow came over her voice as she continued the narration.

“At the end of the Clone Wars when the Empire rose to power, he was hidden . . . Someone took him from the Temple . . . Then his memory becomes dark . . . He seamed lost . . . Alone . . .”

Ending the sad tale, Ahsoka looked up at the Mandalorian.

“He said he’s hidden his abilities to survive over the years . . . Can he still wield the Force?” she asked.

“Yes—when ‘space dad’ here’s in danger—but mainly when he wants to steal something,” Cara said as she sidled up.

“He heals people too,” Din added, shooting Cara an annoyed glare from beneath his helmet.

“Wait, if ‘Baby Yoda’ here’s heard of us, why didn’t we hear about him?” Anakin interrupted.

“ _Grogu’s_ heard of _you_ —which isn’t saying much since everyone’s heard of you,” Ahsoka replied, “My guess is they raised him separately because he aged so much slower than the other younglings.”

“That makes sense, but if we never heard anything at all about _Grogu_ the entire time we were with the Order then the Jedi Temple must have been a lot bigger than we realized,” Anakin mused.

_Bigger and weirder._

It was clear that, while the little guy had previously heard of Anakin, he currently liked Ahsoka much better, and he now reached his tiny arms out to her imploring to be picked up.

Slipping into full ‘mom mode,’ Ahsoka was happy to oblige. Taking him carefully from the Mandalorian, she rocked Grogu in her arms as she again beamed down at him.

“Anyway—I had no idea they were this adorable as babies,” Ahsoka remarked as she gazed into his little face.

“No kidding,” Anakin agreed.

“Wait? You know another of his kind?!” Din exclaimed.

“Yeah, but he’s about 900-years-old and nowhere near as cute,” Anakin replied.

Din and Cara exchanged meaningful looks.

“He’ll be on planet in-” Anakin looked at his chrono and inwardly cringed as out of the corner of his eye he caught Ahsoka looking up and shooting him a glare, “about twenty minutes, if you want to meet him.”

“That would be great,” Din said, sounding a bit stunned.

“We should probably get going then,” Ahsoka said, somewhat reluctantly passing Grogu back to his guardian.

Anakin, however, could not help but survey the battlefield littered with white armored bodies.

Remembering all the fallen clone troopers who had to be left behind by the necessities of war, Anakin found that he could not leave even his deceased adversaries to be picked over by scavenging animals.

Although still very annoyed with him, Ahsoka nonetheless helped Anakin use the Force to move the bodies of the dead stormtroopers back into the transports on which they had arrived. Once all were stacked inside, the former Jedi sealed the ships—satisfied that the makeshift tombs were a more humane resting place than the merciless desert.

With a gentle tug on Ahsoka's elbow, Anakin also took the opportunity to lead her out of earshot of the others. With a hoard of guests about to descend upon the moisture farm, it would likely be the only chance for a private word with his wife until late that night.

"Ahsoka, thank you for coming after me. You were right—this day went completely sideways. And I'm sorry for not keeping you in the loop with what was going on," he said with heartfelt sincerity.

After all the stunts he'd pulled this afternoon it wouldn't have mattered how much he groveled—Padmé would have made him sleep on the couch for a week. A hallmark of his second marriage being much healthier than his first, however, was husband and wife’s mutual quickness to forgive and not hold grudges—which Anakin had learned a lot about from Ahsoka.

"It's okay Anakin,” she told him, her eyes softening as she accepted his apology.

“Everything's ready at the farm, and I can see you were needed here to help Grogu," she said before adding, "At this point I’m just glad you're alright."

She met him half way as Anakin leaned down and kissed her, and they exchanged looks of love when they at last broke apart.

"But _please_ come home now, Anakin," Ahsoka implored.

"I promise I'll be right behind you," he assured her.

As Anakin walked Ahsoka to their family's ship and saw her safely aboard, a naggling sense stirred at the back of his mind.

_There was something else he wanted to tell her, but he couldn't quite remember what it was . . ._

They exchanged smiles as the gangplank rose, and Anakin watched the freighter lift off and head back in the direction of the moisture farm.

_Well if it was important it would come to him._

Turning, he followed Din and Cara into the _Razor Crest_.

Where Trish and Rey were waiting for them.

_Right._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I understood and agreed with the decision to blow up the Razor Crest, I was still quite surprised when it happened. I also really like that ship and decided it should live!
> 
> And yes, before anyone asks, I absolutely did watched ‘Ahsoka fight scene synced to barracuda’ on repeat while writing this chapter. :D
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8jwu0mjsh8
> 
> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos always much appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Also if anyone is interested, I figured out a way to give Anakin a cannon compliant (through TLJ) happy ending. It's long, psychologically detailed, and not for everyone, but it does have a ton of redeemed Anakin in the happy ending (along with Ahsoka and Obi-Wan in the last 2 chapters which are now finished!).
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060415/chapters/37497101


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